Page 9 of Meet Me at Christmas
“Mm.” Mama seemed preoccupied, her attention returning to the news where cleanup efforts were going on around town to clear fallen trees that had succumbed to the heavy ice. She looked exhausted.
“You okay?” Stella asked.
Mama’s lip quivered. “I miss your pop.” She reached over and grabbed another tissue as a tear fell down her cheek.
“Me too,” Stella said, putting her arm around her mother.
They sat together under the quiet hum of the newscast, both fighting tears. Stella looked over at the chair where Pop had sat every evening. If she closed her eyes, she could see him eating dinner while wearing a paper hat she’d made for him in grade school one year. He’d worn it that entire week.
Mama shifted, touching the pendant around Stella’s neck. “What’s that?”
Stella had forgotten she was wearing it. “Oh, it’s the strangest story,” she said, clearing her throat. She lifted it from the collar of her sweatshirt so Mama could see it and filled her mother in on her collision with a caramel latte and how she’d ended up with it. “I should probably call the airport today to see if anyone has reported it missing.”
Mama leaned in to inspect the stones. “You definitely should. Those diamonds look real.” She squinted. “And that looks like a… sapphire? It’s a bit light to be one, though.”
“I’m not sure what it is,” Stella replied, peering down at it.
“It’s hard to say. I’m no expert.”
Glad for the distraction from other matters on her mind, she offered, “Maybe we could try to look it up. We might find a picture of the stone—it’s an unusual shade of blue, a frosty color.”
“Yes. Let’s see if we can figure it out. While you get your computer, I’ll heat up the pancakes for us.”
Stella abandoned her coffee and got up from the table. “That sounds amazing. I’m starving,” she said over her shoulder as she headed down the hallway.
When she returned, Mama had plated her two fluffy pancakes with a pad of butter melting on top of each one, the entire surface drizzled in a thin glaze of warm maple syrup. Stella set her laptop on the table and opened the search engine, then typed “light blue gemstones.” After cutting herself a bite of pancake, Stella scooted the plate out of the way and leaned in to view the results. Her screen was filled with images of blue stones in various shades.
Mama tapped the screen. “It looks like a blue diamond, doesn’t it?”
Stella examined the stone around her neck once more. “It does.” She typed “blue diamonds” into the search bar to pull up more photos.
Mama clicked off the news and turned her focus to the computer screen. “Look,” she said, stopping Stella before she scrolled. “That says, ‘Blue diamonds have been around since the 1600s.’ I’ve never heard of a blue diamond before. How interesting.”
“Thatisinteresting, isn’t it?”
“I wonder when they found the first one,” Mama said before sipping her coffee.
Curious, Stella typed “oldest blue diamond.” When the search results came up, an article caught her eye. “It looks like the first one ever found was in India.” She took a sip of her coffee while looking through the various posts. “I never knew there were so many kinds.” She clicked on “images” and perused more photos. Then she stopped, recognizing one and comparing it to the stone she was wearing. “That looks exactly like this one, doesn’t it? ‘The Christmas Diamond’…”
“It does.” Mama set down her coffee mug, leaning in closer. “What does it say?”
As she dug into her pancakes again, Stella pulled up the article and began to read. “‘The Christmas Diamond is a rare blue jewel that was originally commissioned in 1764 by a wealthy British nobleman while traveling in Barbados. It was thought to have originally been a gift for the bride of one of England’s lords but, at the last minute, he changed his mind and got her a different gift.’
“‘The locals of the town in Barbados where it was mined believed that the blue jewel could hold the energy of the divine, and that if it wasn’t given and received in love, the jewel would cast punishment on anyone in its wake.’”
“What a curious legend. Read some more.”
Stella continued. “‘The diamond was later purchased in 1768 as a holiday gift for wealthy aristocrat Mrs. Agnes Hastings from her husband’s father. He bought the diamond for his son’s new wife as a congratulatory gesture, since his son William was about to become a father himself. It was rumored that Agnes wasn’t in love with her husband, and instead was romantically involved with the town blacksmith, whom she’d always loved, but he was not of an acceptable class.’”
Mama gasped. “Oh, my.” She leaned forward on her elbows, her eyes wide.
Stella grinned, reading on. “‘Three days after receiving the gift, while wearing it, Agnes delivered a stillborn child.’” The seriousness of the subject matter caused Stella to stop, the words blurring in front of her. Any lightheartedness she’d had about the story vanished. A child had died. The pancakes set like a brick in her stomach. “How terrible,” she whispered.
Mama sobered. “Do you think it was her destiny because she didn’t love her husband? Or maybe the baby wasn’t her husband’s…” She clapped a hand over her mouth.
Stella shook her head, unsure, looking back down at the necklace. Suddenly, it felt heavy, and she had the urge to take it off.
“Keep going,” her mother said.
